


Christmas Kismet

by prettysailorsoldier



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blind Date, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, First Date, First Meetings, Fluff, Love at First Sight, M/M, Soulmates, Ugly Holiday Sweaters, Ugly Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 21:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17129045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettysailorsoldier/pseuds/prettysailorsoldier
Summary: John Watson does not believe in love at first sight. He is leery of fate, skeptical of destiny, and definitely doesn't buy into Christmas miracles. But a chance meeting on the underground is about to change all that and then some.





	Christmas Kismet

**Author's Note:**

> A great many of us in the Sherlock fandom lost a friend and fellow this week. In their absence, we've all been trying to find ways, big or small, to spread their legacy of love as far and as wide as we can. This is the best way I know how to do that, and it isn't much. But I hope it brings a little bit of comfort to any aching hearts.
> 
> In particular, my dear friend Lesley/Vanetti encouraged me to write this, and so I send it most directly to them. I hope it helps, my love, if only a little <3

He tapped his card against the turnstile, running into the plastic doors with a hissed curse before backing up to slam his wallet to the scanner. “Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered, toes tapping against the inside of his trainer. An eternity of seconds passed, and then the doors swung out, John darting through them and weaving within the blur of gray and navy suits that comprised Friday night rush hour in central London. The escalators were infuriating, John considering more than once just sliding down the center as he excused and pardoned himself around people who had the luxury of that extra thirty seconds to the bottom, and then he sprinted down the tunnel to the Circle line, checking his mobile as he went.

Twenty minutes. He had twenty minutes. And a text from Irene.

**_Where the fuck are you??_ **

He snarled down at the screen, taking a breath to steady himself before he smashed out an unwarranted reply.

It wasn’t Irene’s fault he’d fallen asleep in the library.

_ On my way _

He lowered the phone against his leg as he popped out of the tunnel, sweeping his eyes side to side across the crowded platform for the best shot at getting on the next train. Selecting a spot near the far end, he started that way, lifting the screen back up to his face as Irene’s reply chimed in.

**_Well I should hope so. ETA?_ **

John lifted his gaze, checking the screen jutting out from the concrete ceiling, announcing the next train’s imminent arrival.

_ Fifteen mins _

Irene’s response was immediate.

**_Godspeed, Doc_ **

The train burst into view, brakes squealing as it began to slow to a stop, and John tucked his mobile into the messenger bag slung over his shoulder, watching the time tick down not going to make the train go any faster. He shifted his weight between his shoes as the doors slowly lined up with some invisible mark, metal shuddering to stillness as the waiting passengers parted to either side. The compartment was less crowded than he’d expected, but there were still no seats, and John moved toward the center of the car, preserving himself a little breathing room as everyone else hung near the doors. The metal bar overhead was cold and greasy against his palm, and he cringed, taking some placebo comfort in the hand sanitizer waiting in his bag as the doors hissed shut, his fingers tightening against the metal before the train jerked into motion.

As they rumbled along through the darkness, John allowed himself a deep breath, feeling his heart rate slow. He was still likely going to be late, but he was on the train at least, nothing to do now but wait and mentally prepare for the mad dash from the station. His muscles unclenching, he cracked his neck, smiling an apology to the woman standing beside him who looked appalled at the sound, and then turned the opposite direction, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder and reading the advertisements on the walls to occupy his idle eyes.

Food delivery app. Food delivery app. Weirdly sexual cologne advert. Food delivery app.

A familiar—albeit unexpected—sound scraped into John’s ears, and he frowned, dropping his eyes in search of the source. A man sitting a short distance away was fast asleep and snoring loudly, his neck lolled over the seatback behind him. He was older, perhaps in his sixties, and definitely not one of the business set, worn jeans sticking out from under a puffy red coat and a scraggly salt-and-pepper beard dusting his chin. He let out a particularly gruff snort, lips slapping together as he swallowed, but didn’t wake, the sound prompting the passenger beside him to lift his face from his phone to glare-

-and John’s heart stopped. The train stopped. London stopped, the world stopped, the sun shuddered to stillness and held the solar system hostage for an endless tick of time as all the air in John’s lungs was swept into the vacuum of the train car, sound ceasing in the frozen molecules of oxygen around them.

John Watson was not a romantic. He couldn’t understand why people didn’t just talk in those movies that simple misunderstandings temporarily derailed. He never remembered when Valentine’s Day was in spite of it never changing. His idea of a grand gesture was a bottle of wine that cost more than thirty quid, and, to top off all those glowing attributes, he would sooner file his aunt’s bunions than have to give words to his feelings.

But, in that moment, that single held breath of Father Time, he could have composed sonnets, epic poems, a goddamn trilogy just on the shards of silver in the man’s blue eyes, glinting like sharpened tips of swords in the harsh light of the overhead fluorescents. He could have learned an instrument to write a concerto on the tousled curls crowning his head, crescendos of chestnut and umber rippling through the dark brown melody. He could paint, pencil, pastel the lines and shadows of his face until the bones of his fingers warped and knotted and still never get the sloping line of his nose just right, the slice of his cheekbones, the supple curve of his Cupid’s bow lips.

John could feel every nerve in his body like they were aflame, and yet his limbs were numb and cold, as if his soul had half abandoned them already, reaching, straining, answering whatever call had summoned it.

The man’s eyes narrowed at the side of his sleeping neighbor’s face, his head shaking slightly in disapproval, everything around him an unimportant wash of watercolor to John’s eyes, and then his gaze lifted, John barely having time to hope his jaw wasn’t hanging open when the world came back with an unceremonious squeal and bump, the train starting to brake into a stop and sending him tumbling back into his body and the woman beside him.

“Sorry,” he muttered, mouth dry and cheeks burning, and she huffed, rattling her head at him and stomping away, exiting the doors when they hissed open. John cleared his throat and swallowed, cursing the stress sweat he could feel pouring into his armpits, but he didn’t have the time to run away and wait for the next train, so he tipped his chin to the ceiling, taking a deep breath and bracing himself as he faced forward.

The man was still looking at him, John could see in his peripheral vision, and he pretended to check the tube map over the window for a long moment until it couldn’t be avoided. The man’s eyes were even worse when they were looking at him, the focus unwavering, as if he were tearing him apart to scan every molecule before stitching him back together. The gaze was almost tangible, a shiver running down John’s spine, but something about it was more welcoming than unnerving, a hint of recognition humming in the back of his mind, though he was sure he’d never seen the man before. For a moment, John thought he saw the same sentiment reflected back at him, written across the windows to his soul, but then the sleeping passenger beside him dropped his head to the man’s shoulder, and the moment shattered with a guttural snore.

The man spun his face downward, blinking in wide-mouthed affront at the stranger now using him as a pillow, and it was so strange, so startling, it seemed to let loose all the butterflies caged in John’s stomach at once, a truly ridiculous giggle bubbling up his throat before he slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle it. The man looked up at him, a corner of his mouth lifting in spite of an effort to look unamused, and then simply shook his head, lips parting as if to speak when the announcement for Kings Cross chimed overhead. His eyes swept the windows on the opposite side of the car, and he turned his wrist up, rattling the sleeve of his coat to reveal a watch. Whatever he found, he didn’t appear pleased, an irritable breath hissing over his teeth as the corners of his eyes pinched, and he delicately rolled his shoulder, sliding the man’s head back onto the seat while the train jarred to a stop. He stood, glancing at John, an oddly apologetic look on his face, and then swept away to the door, John following him with his eyes as his feet froze against the dirty plastic floor, cold, helpless horror creeping down from the crown of his head.

“Oh,” a woman’s voice murmured, drawing John’s attention away as the tail of the man’s trench coat disappeared through the doors. She was standing in front of his vacated seat, a long blue scarf in her hand and earnest expression on her face. “He forgot his scarf.”

John frowned down at the garment, and then whipped toward the door, but the doors were already beeping closed, and he scanned the windows, searching for the somehow familiar face of a stranger. He found him a few windows down, long pale fingers reaching for his neck and catching only air, his chin dropping to examine the absence before looking back to the train and finding John’s eyes again. 

He blinked, that same shock rushing through John at the contact, and then the train started to move, shifting the windows and whisking him from view, a cold spot prickling in John’s chest as a piece of him broke away to stay behind.

“I’ll take it,” he heard, and then realized he was saying it, turning back to the woman now sitting in the abandoned spot. “I’ll get it back to him.” He held his hand down toward the scarf, not sure why it didn’t feel like a lie, but the woman didn’t seem as convinced, squinting at him a moment before handing it over. John turned the soft blue wool over in his hands, trying to subtly search it for some sort of identifiable tag, but the man didn’t look like the type to still frequent summer camps, so there was no name scrawled in permanent marker over the faded washing instructions.

Gently, John tucked the scarf into his bag, careful not to snag it on the zipper, and then tried in vain to reset his brain, a long night ahead of him he didn’t need haunted by a piercing pair of blue eyes.

He had pulled himself together enough to take off at a run with the train stopped, beating most of the crowd up to the street, but did get a bit turned around with his cardinal directions, arriving at the staff entrance to the hotel with only two minutes to spare.

“Cutting it a bit close, aren’t we?” Irene mocked from where she’d been leaning just inside the door, smirking at John’s glare until the winter chill swooping in the open door reached her, her face wrinkling in a grimace as she hugged her arms over her chest. “Loo is that way, employee lounge just beyond,” she said, pointing down a corridor to her right. “Get changed and dump your stuff; we’ve still got half a buffet to set up.”

John nodded, stomping his feet to warm his legs as he scuttled down the corridor, carefully extricating his black catering attire from around the scarf in his bag and changing before gathering everything to head to the employee lounge. He placed the bag on the table, bundling his regular clothes and coat beside it, and then lifted out the scarf, running the soft fabric between his hands. A rush of air from the heating unit blew across the scarf and into his face, tickling his nose with a heady blend of evergreen and salt air, and John’s eyes fluttered shut, a shiver ricocheting down his spine like lightning.

“JONATHAN HAMISH-”

“Alright!” he snarled, setting the scarf aside to shove his plainclothes in first, draping his jacket over a chair before folding the wool and placing it on top, sealing it and its scent inside with the zipper. “And that’s not my full name,” he muttered as he strode back down the corridor, struggling with the strangling top button of his shirt. 

Irene sighed, rolling her eyes and swatting his hands away, her long red nails somehow still making quick work of the fastening. “I know,” she muttered, “I just wanted to sound like your mother.”

“You could try slurring your words,” John grumbled, Irene stopping halfway through the kitchen to turn back to him with wide, blinking eyes.

“Holy childhood trauma, Batman; what’s up with you?” she pressed, and John sighed, pinching at the bridge of his nose as he shook his head.

“Nothing,” he muttered, suddenly exhausted, the extended stress of final exams aching in the knots between his shoulder blades. “I’m just…tired, I guess.”

Irene frowned, unconvinced, but there was no time to argue the point, a woman bursting in the door to complain about being unable to decorate half a buffet. “We’ll do that right away, ma’am,” Irene replied, customer service smile slipping off as she passed the woman, rolling her eyes at John when they’d pushed through the door. “Wedding planner,” she muttered, and waved him over to a collection of tables and silver chafers in a haphazard pile against the wall.

They made quick work of the buffet, Irene giving him the wedding basics as they spread the black tablecloths and clipped them into place, essential names and the like, but none of it was likely to come up, buffet weddings requiring the bare minimum of guest interaction. They’d mostly be asking if people were finished with that and lugging trays of dirty dishes back to the kitchen all night.

“We’re gonna need you to man the bar through dinner too,” Irene explained as they arranged the Sterno under the dishes and hoped  _ this _ wedding planner had enough sense not to string tinsel over them. “They have a bartender coming at 8 when the full bar opens, but no one for the dinner wine and beer service. Planner says they assumed the hotel would have someone ‘lying around’.” She rolled her eyes, and John chuckled, shrugging his shoulders as he settled the metal lids into place with as little clanging as possible.

“Christmas weddings. What can ya do?”

“Wait six months?” Irene grumbled, and John laughed, smoothing some wrinkles in the tablecloth as a final touch. “Thanks for coming in like this,” she said, John looking up to find a soft smile curling half her mouth. “I didn’t know what to do when Molly called in sick. So many people have already left for the holidays.”

“Not me,” he chirped with a sarcastic grin. “I’ve got my last exam Tuesday, and then a blissful two weeks of absolutely nothing.”

“Except my ugly sweater party.”

“Except your ugly sweater party,” he amended, rolling his eyes as Irene beamed. “When is that again?” he mused, and Irene threw a spare tablecloth clip at him.

“Christmas Eve, you arse.” She rattled her head, gathering up the extra table linens and heading toward the collection of open bins splayed around the rim of the room. “But you do have one more thing to remember.” She dropped the tablecloths over what looked like spare chair covers, turning to him with an expectant lift of her brows.

John looked down, pinching his bottom lip between his teeth. “Your…present?”

“John!”

“What!?”

Irene rolled her eyes to the ceiling with a long-suffering sigh. “Your date? Wednesday night?” she prompted, chuckling as John wrinkled his nose. “Look, Molly set this up for you  _ ages _ ago. You can’t bail again.”

“He’s the one that bailed!”

“The first time,” Irene reminded, lifting a finger. “You canceled the second.” She folded her arms, daring him to argue, but he could hardly challenge a fact, dropping his gaze to glare at the ground instead. “Just go, have coffee, probably hate him, and we never have to hear about it again, alright?” she advised, shrugging her shoulders and moving back toward the kitchen. “But, who knows, you might have fun. Molly says he’s a great guy.”

“We’re trusting Molly’s taste now?”

“She does have a knack for finding the gay ones,” Irene said, and John huffed a short laugh, that much true enough, he supposed. “But, I dunno, she said they’ve been in classes and stuff together for a couple years now. Seems like she knows this one pretty well.”

“I take it you don’t know who he is either?” John supposed, and Irene shook her head.

“No. She doesn’t think I’d keep it a secret.”

“Which you wouldn’t.”

“Probably not,” Irene admitted, pushing into the kitchen as John laughed. “Just show up this time, alright? I don’t need you two bringing some little tiff to my party.”

“Because that would be the real tragedy here,” he teased, but Irene nodded, somber as the grave.

“Now,” she muttered, waving a hand at a veritable mountain of plates and cutlery set up on the end of the counter, “help me get these out. Plates by the buffet, silverware and glasses on the tables.”

John lifted two fingers to his forehead. “Aye aye, Captain!” he chirped, Irene’s sigh whispering over her shoulder as she turned to the daunting stacks of plates.

____________________

The problem with Kings Cross was options, John lamented for at least the hundredth time. Several underground lines crossed through there, not to mention the trains, and, factoring in airport access, John’s mystery man could have been halfway around the world by the time he’d showed up Saturday afternoon, haunting the exit from the Circle line platform and garnering gradually more suspicious looks from security. After a couple hours of that, he moved up to the rail station, parking himself on a bench and scanning the turnstiles for a familiar head of hair coming or going. From there, he rode back to where he’d first gotten on the underground, switching directions and checking every car on the way to Kings Cross before getting off at the platform and waiting, watching the exact time and an hour after pass on the clock as he searched through the faces tunneling toward the center of the station. Rinse and repeat and repeat.

He didn’t know if he expected to find him. He had seen the man on a Friday, and then it was the weekend, a variance in routine more likely than not. He had never heard him speak, not sure if he should be looking in England or Scotland or France, or maybe even a different continent altogether, an American tourist taking a pre-holiday jaunt abroad. He had no reason to have any faith in this strategy at all, and yet, leaning against the tiled wall of the platform tunnel, his thumb stroking over the soft blue wool that now lived in his bag, he couldn’t help but feel like its owner wasn’t far. He could never explain it, not with any words in any language, but he knew, a bone-deep truth humming in his marrow, that the man was English, that he lived in London, that he wasn’t going anywhere.

Now, he just had to find him.

John checked the time on his mobile, a reluctant sigh hefting his lungs, and pulled away from the platform wall, joining the queue for the next train. He had thought he would sneak in a little bit of stalking before his exam, however off that timing was, but he’d slept in later than expected, and could only watch a few trains come and go before needing to head back east to Barts. The walk from the station to the biology building wasn’t far, but the blistering winter wind pushed back against him, every step a battle of wills against nature, and John shivered, trying to duck his head into the collar of his rugby jacket and bemoaning his decision to not wear something with a hood. A thought whispered from the corner of his mind, and he glanced down at the zipper of his messenger bag, considering the option.

Mystery Man would understand, he was sure somehow. And he could always wash it. 

A particularly bitter gust swooped down from the gray sky, and he stopped considering and decided, tugging open the zipper with fumbling, frozen fingers and wrangling the scarf out of the gap. He draped it around the back of his neck, tugging one end longer and looping that around his face at the mouth and nose, more than the wind making him unsteady as he breathed in the scent captured in the dense knit of the wool.

Upon closer inspection, he could identify other notes mingling within the dense forest and frothing sea. Hints of coffee and something sweet and smoky, like caramel not quite burnt. The scarf was warm and worn soft, balled in places from chafing against faces and fabric, and John twisted his fingers in the fringed edge, imagining the coffee shops and classrooms and busy shopping streets and deserted snow-strewn parks this scrap of fabric had seen from its place around the long thin neck of its owner. For all the time John had spent looking for him, searching for features of his face, he could picture him quite clearly now, conjuring his visage in the window seat of John’s favorite cafe, scarf hanging loose around his neck as he talked in silent motions of his lips, a voice the one thing John hadn’t been able to create.

It was odd, perhaps, to feel so connected to a stranger, so immersed in another person’s life he had entirely fictionalized, but he couldn’t talk himself out of the irrational conviction of familiarity, and greedily breathed in the scent enveloping him in the warm comfort of a home he’d never truly known.

He kept the scarf on through his exam, unwrapping it to dangle down his shoulders, the weight steadying his nerves like the gentle touch of a hand. After, finally free of another semester of academia, he started for his dorm with a bounce in his step, stopping at his favorite cafe and actually sitting in for lunch, snagging an upholstered chair by the faux fire and pulling out his mobile to check on Molly.

_ How ya feeling? _

He was halfway through his coronation chicken before she replied, a few face mask and crying emojis coming in first.

**_Been better. How was your exam?_ **

John rolled his eyes. Leave it to Molly to pop out of a cold medicine coma and still remember his schedule.

_ Good. Finished early, grabbing lunch at Rosie’s now. You want me to bring you anything? _

A sparkling heart appeared.

**_Thanks but my friend brought over enough soup for an army_ **

An upside-down smiley face.

**_Probably best you avoid the quarantine zone anyway. Don’t wanna be sick for your first date!_ **

A winking emoji blew him a kiss, and John rolled his eyes, shaking his head and taking another sip of his coffee.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to start dating again, as much as Molly and Irene insisted he was just gun-shy after Mary’s sudden drop-and-run four months ago, he just…hadn’t found anyone he wanted to date. And he doubted a blind date with a friend Molly went to school with at Imperial was going to change that. Especially not now that he was…well, whatever he was.

_ No. Never. _

Molly replied with a smiley face sticking its tongue out, which John took as a farewell, stowing the mobile back in his bag and absentmindedly twirling the fringe of the scarf around his finger as he stared into the shifting electric fire, sipping on the last of his coffee.

Suddenly, as if his name had been shouted across the room, he turned to the window, an indefinable something tickling at the base of his skull, a tingling extrasensory awareness. He squinted, searching for the source of his fascination, and then his heart seized in his throat, the chair he was sitting on seeming to tip with the rise and fall of his breath.

There, across the street, hands in the pockets of his long dark coat and head bowed to the wind, a gray scarf fluttering behind him. It was him. John was sure of it, as sure as he was of himself sitting there gaping like an idiot, and his brain screamed at his limbs to get a move on already, his whole body trying to get up at once and making a tangled mess of things. He put the coffee cup on the table, trying to bundle the plastic around what little was left of his sandwich and then giving it up—the bread had been dry anyway. He moved to throw that in the bin, then reconsidered whether it would be faster to gather his stuff up and chuck it on the way, then decided thinking about it was taking more time than either option and just grabbed his coat and bag, shoving the rubbish in the always too small opening and crashing out onto the pavement, freezing in his state of undress.

Grumbling, he struggled into one sleeve, bag swinging off his elbow and banging against his legs, textbooks for his last minute cram session jabbing into the sensitive back of his knee. “Wait!” he cried, but could’ve been talking to anyone, and, even if the wind wasn’t carrying his voice away, people didn’t often stop just because someone on the street shouted at them to. More often than not, they sped up. “Wait, stop!”

The man rounded the corner without so much as glancing over his shoulder, and John growled a curse, rushing to the intersection and darting across in the narrow gap between a black cab and hideous orange sports car.

He had to wait at the next light to get to the correct side of the street, and then ran to corner, throwing himself around and scanning the side street. Apartment buildings stretched down either side, endless doors and opportunities to disappear. There was an underground station at the end of the block, yet another escape hatch, but, whatever method had been used, the man was gone, John’s shoulders slumping as disappointment sealed around his heart like cold lead. Wandering down the quiet street, he slowed to zip up his jacket, careful of his adopted scarf, and adjusted his bag on his shoulder before descending the underground steps, scanning the ticket kiosks briefly in case the man had gotten stuck in a line reloading his card. He’d never been lucky, however, and today didn’t appear to be his day to start, the entrance to the platform deserted for the moment in the gap between trains.

He considered heading back to his second home at Kings Cross, but, with his mystery man over here for some reason, it didn’t seem worth the trouble, and the spark of hope and crushing defeat at having him slip through his fingers yet again had drained him of his good mood. He turned around, stomping back up the steps and heading toward his flat, head hanging as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Hey,” Mike greeted, leaning over the back of the sofa as John walked in the door, hanging his coat on the hook and tossing his keys in the hideous clay bowl Mike’s little cousin had made him. “Did you flunk out?”

“Not today,” John replied, smiling as he crossed into the living room, folding his arms and frowning at the television. “What are you watching?”

Mike looked back to the TV, shaking his head. “Honestly…I’ve no idea,” he muttered, shrugging up at him while John laughed. “I zoned out a couple hours ago. Christmas present to yourself?” he asked, nodding at the scarf when John frowned at him.

“Oh, er, no, this is…I’ve had this a while,” he muttered, flipping at the end, and then cleared his throat, stepping away and pointing a thumb toward his bedroom door. “I’m gonna go burn my biology books. We’re going out later, yeah?”

“Soon as you get yourself beautiful,” Mike teased, grinning at John’s wrinkling nose. “Most of the rugby lads are coming, and I think Greg too, if Molly’s not too ill.”

“Sounds good,” John said with a nod, running a hand back through his hair as he started for his room. “I definitely need a drink.”

____________________

John tapped a fingertip on the tabletop, the staccato sound clipping through the air as the vibration rippled across the dregs of his second cup of coffee. He lifted his hand to swipe at the screen of his mobile, checking the time.

Twenty-seven minutes late. Molly had given him permission to call it at half an hour.

Another text came in, John opening it with a tap.

**_Are you sure you’re at the right place?_ **

John rolled his eyes, lifting the phone to snap a picture of the familiar pastry case, the name of the cafe written in prominent swirling script on the chalkboard menu visible hanging on the wall behind.

Perhaps it was snarky. But he’d trekked out in one of the worst blizzards London had ever seen for a blind date that was twenty-eight minutes late, apparently without a word.

He was allowed to be a bit of a dick about it.

**_His phone’s going straight to voicemail_ **

John let the message sit there a moment, downing the remainder of his lukewarm coffee and watching the heavy flakes of snow whip through the dark, illuminated by the warm white light of the twinkle lights framing the front windows. He could feel his heart rate picking up with frustration, and twisted at the edges of the borrowed scarf he’d pulled into his lap from where it hung on the back of his chair, a self-soothing habit he’d somehow picked up in the past 48 hours. When he lifted the phone again, it was time to go, and he moved the scarf to the table and stood, double-checking his back pocket for his wallet as he pulled his jacket from the back of the chair and slipped his arms into the sleeves. He tugged up the zipper and swiped the scarf off the table, tapping out a message to Molly with the other hand as he moved to the door.

_ Heading out. Guess the third time’s not the charm _

He tucked his mobile into his pocket before he opened the door, stepping into the cold and lifting the scarf to wrap it around his neck when a gust swept around the corner to hit him broadside, catching the scarf halfway over his shoulders and ripping it from his grip. His heart jumped into his throat as he watched it soar into the air, fluttering away through the near blinding snow, his horror convincing him for a moment that it would float endlessly up like a helium balloon before he remembered gravity was a thing, and the scarf landed on the pavement some six feet away, rolling a few extra inches through the building snow. He rushed down the couple steps leading to the cafe doorway, trainers slipping on the slick pavement, and crouched down, fingers reaching for the blue yarn.

But someone else got there first, long pale fingers tangling in the fabric, bunching the wool in a wide palm.

A whiff of forest clearings and ocean cliffs carried up his nose on a frigid breath of air.

He lifted his chin, already certain of what he would find.

“Sorry,” the man muttered, and it was no wonder John hadn’t been able to imagine his voice, the low rumbling rippling over his skin like the first hint of thunder turning your face skyward. “Here,” he said, starting to raise the scarf from the ground, but then stopped, the bit of his forehead John could see with his head bowed creasing with a frown, his fingers sliding over the familiar garment. And then, he looked up, confusion fading to shock as his eyes swept over John’s face, the shard of fear John had held about not being recognized melting away in the heat radiating through his chest.

He didn’t know what to say, or rather how to say everything he wanted to say without sounding like a lunatic, and his companion didn’t seem to be any more loquacious, chapped pink lips shifting with phantom sentiments. Another gust of wind whipped over them, pulling a curl of the man’s hair into his eyes and slicing their cheeks with ice, seeming to shock them out of their trance in tandem, and they rose on some silent signal, the man’s fingers trembling faintly around the scarf still clutched in his hand.

Which John supposed he should explain.

“I- You-”

“Yeah,” the man muttered, turning his palm up to shift the scarf, his lips sharpening to a point on one side. “And you-”

“Yeah.” John shrugged a shoulder, lifting his hand to scratch at the back of his neck. “I…wanted to try to get it back to you.”

“And you did,” he said, his soft smile seeming to set his face aglow, a heavy snowflake settling on the black fan of his lashes as his gaze dropped to the ground.

A breath shuddered from John’s lungs in the silence, wisping out in front of him in swirls of white fog as he wondered if that would be it, if he was being dismissed, if everything he’d imagined had truly been nothing more than that: a delusion of holiday nostalgia brought on by sleep deprivation and wishful thinking. The thought made his knees quake, his stomach churn, his face flush as the rest of him ran cold, but then the man rattled his head, lifting his chin with a light chuckle, and John saw a matching rose of red in his pale cheeks.

“Sorry, I- Thank you,” he said, flapping the scarf in the air for emphasis. “This- It’s…special. I never thought I’d find it again.”

John smiled, tugging at the cuff of his jacket to cover his fingers. “I guess some things are meant to be,” he muttered, and the man laughed, his head shaking with wonder as he turned the scarf over in his hands.

“I guess so,” he mused, eyes bright and glittering when they lifted, his tongue flicking over his lips in a moment’s hesitation before he extended a hand between them, his smile broad but tight with nerves. “I-I’m Sherlock, by the way. Sherlock Holmes.”

John looked down at the pale palm, the snow seeming to slow against the black canopy of night around them.

Some moments in life, some choices, create a line that forever forms a divide between before and after, a line you can only cross once. John had never been faced with such a decision before, but he could feel it now, thrumming in the air around him, singing in every cell of his body, ringing with the indelible truth that, if he reached out and took that offered hand, he could never go back to the person he was right now, never live the life that would have otherwise been intended for him. Whether it would be better or worse, he couldn’t say, but it would be different, his course forever changed by the simple act of reaching out, stretching into the unknown and accepting whatever turning tide awaited him.

He took a deep breath. Smiled.

“John Watson,” he said, Sherlock’s hand warm and soft and real against his skin, and Sherlock smiled, his hand sliding slowly from John’s grip, as if the swirls and ridges of his fingers were trying to cling on. John bit the inside of his lip, never one to be nervous when it came to romance, but it had also never really mattered. Not like this did anyway. “I-I hope this isn’t…ridiculously forward,” he murmured, and Sherlock tucked his chin, a knowing smile curling his mouth and loaning John courage, “but…do you wanna grab…a drink or something?”

Sherlock blinked down at the pavement a moment before pale eyes peered up through his lashes. “Now?” he asked, surprised, and John nodded, too far down this road to pretend he’d meant to take another. “I- Well-” He looked past John to the cafe, teeth pinching at the corner of his lip, his brows knitting together over the bridge of his nose. A breath whistled up his nose, and then gusted out, his shoulders pulling away from his ears as the tension dropped from his frame. “Okay,” he said, and John felt his face fall slack with shock.

“O…kay?” he confirmed, today plenty weird enough that him hearing things wasn’t out of the question, but Sherlock nodded, a soft chuckle rumbling out from between his curved lips.

“Okay,” he repeated, and John managed to reel his mouth closed, forcing a swallow down his brittle throat.

“Right,” he muttered, turning side to side to get his bearings, the rush of adrenaline and endorphins having whisked away such trivial information, “er…this way.” He pointed over Sherlock’s shoulder, pulling out his mobile to double check his directions. “There’s a pub I’ve been to a few times.”

“Alright,” Sherlock replied, stepping to the side and waiting for John to start ahead, falling into step beside him as they headed down the dim street.

They walked in silence for a time, but not uncomfortably, John enjoying the companionable quiet as his racing mind made sense of the impossibility of the past five minutes.

“If…If you don’t mind me asking,” Sherlock ventured as they paused at a streetlight, a shy glance dropping from the corner of his eye, “how did you find me?”

John huffed a laugh, shaking his head out at the rumbling traffic. “I didn’t really. I mean, I tried, but this”—he waved a hand in the direction of their meeting—“just sort of…happened.”

Sherlock hummed, but didn’t appear to be skeptical, leaning out to see around a parked car. “Then how did you try?”

John flinched, the question inevitable, but the answer bound to be humiliating. “It’s…a long story,” he mumbled.

“I don’t mind,” Sherlock answered with an easy shrug, his smile bright and brilliant and not remotely afraid, but it softened before he spoke, his voice dropping with deliberate sincerity. “I’m not going anywhere.”

John blinked. Smiled. Took a _very_ deep breath.

And began.

____________________

John laid on his back on the bed, head dangling off the side, his view of the now-familiar room inverted as he blinked at the slice of light radiating from the bathroom door. He felt his mobile vibrate somewhere near his hand, and turned his palm down, patting over the duvet and discarded Christmas jumpers until he uncovered it from a soft sleeve, lifting his arm to hover the screen in front of his face.

**_You and your beau on the way yet?_ **

John smiled, tapping out a reply.

_ Almost _

Irene started typing immediately.

**_Only you could go out for a blind date and go home with somebody else_ **

_ I didn’t go home with him _

**_No you waited a respectable 24 hours_ **

John chuckled, glancing past his phone as a shadow moved across the bathroom door, but no one emerged, so he went back to his message, changing the subject.

_ Did Molly invite him to the party? _

**_No I talked her out of it. Blind date ship has sailed._ **

John smiled around the bedroom, breathing in the blend of shampoo, aftershave, and coffee that mingled in the air around him. It had only been six days, but he’d been in the cozy Baker Street flat for half of them, falling swiftly in love with the mismatched furniture and creaking hardwood floors, though he would have to get an electric kettle if he intended to keep up that ratio, the metal stovetop relic a little too much character even for him.

_ Sure has _

**_Gross_ **

John sniffed a laugh, tapping a slow reply with his thumbs.

_ Tell Molly not to say anything about the blind date k? I haven’t told him yet. _

**_Yeah “I was supposed to be dating someone else” might be a week two conversation_ **

John rolled his eyes at the screen.

_ Has she been asking you anything? _

**_No she’s respecting your privacy_ **

John was laughing even before the eye-roll emoji came in.

**_She’s been texting me nonstop since you told her. Or rather didn’t tell her_ **

_ I didn’t want her to look him up _

**_How vengeful of you_ **

John sent back the devil emoji, and then the bathroom door swung open, his phone dropped to the duvet as his focus shifted.

“Okay,” Sherlock muttered, walking on the ceiling to John’s eyes as he stepped into the bedroom, smoothing down the front of a snowman jumper, complete with 3D buttons, scarf, and nose, “what about this one?”

“Even more hideous than the last,” John replied, and Sherlock sighed, shoulders slumping in exasperation.

“John.”

“What?” He flipped over, curling his legs under to sit cross-legged on the edge of the bed. “I mean it. It’s horrible.”

Sherlock smiled for a moment before the anxious tension overtook his expression again, his chin tucking as he adjusted the protruding carrot nose. “I don’t know… Do you think the Christmas tree is uglier?”

“Sherlock,” John chuckled, stretching out his arms, Sherlock wavering a moment before taking his hands with a flustered sigh, “they’re all terrible. Honest.”

“I know,” he muttered, looking over the rejects strewn across his bed behind John, “I’m just…”

“Nervous?”

“No,” he snipped, jerking his hands away, and John laughed, rising to stand beside his blushing boyfriend, though he’d yet to tell Sherlock he was calling him that.

They’d get around to it.

“Look, snowman”—he flicked the red fringe of the attached scarf—“Christmas tree, elf, it doesn’t matter. They’re gonna like you no matter what festive symbol you’re wearing.”

“Easy for you to say,” Sherlock grumbled, eyebrows wrinkling at the floor. “I told you, people don’t generally…enjoy my company.”

“Mike enjoyed your company.”

“That was different.”

“How?” John asked, stepping back as Sherlock peeled off the snowman jumper, red lint scattered over his white t-shirt. “He was my friend. These are my friends.” He moved his hands side to side, encompassing the two scenarios. “And, this time, everyone will be completely sloshed, so they might even laugh at your science jokes.”

Sherlock sneered at him, emitting a humorless laugh, and John chuckled, reaching forward to loop his arms around his waist, one of the many gestures of affection that came somehow effortlessly to him now.

“It’ll be  _ fine _ ,” he assured, weaving his head to catch Sherlock’s evasive gaze. “Promise,” he added, and Sherlock bit his lip, a nervous habit that drove John a little more mad than he liked to admit. “And, if it’s not,” he mused, quirking a brow as Sherlock looked up, eyes narrowing at the shift in his tone, “we can always leave early.” He tightened his grip, lowering the wreath of his arms to the curve of Sherlock’s low back, a peal of laughter bubbling up the man’s throat.

“I know you’re trying to be cute,” he chuckled, settling his palms on John’s shoulders, “but we have to stay at least an hour. Otherwise it looks like we only came for the free food.”

“That’s ridiculous,” John muttered, pressing their torsos together. “We’re obviously going for the free booze.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, struggling in his grip, and John chuckled, rattling him closer and planting a peck along the line of his jaw. 

“Alright, Miss Manners, we’ll stay. Probably take longer than that for Irene to warm up to you anyway.”

Sherlock leaned back, eyes wide and frantic, and John laughed, shaking his head.

“I’m kidding,” he assured, Sherlock’s eyes narrowing as his lips pinched with a pout, and John leaned up, smoothing the creases with his mouth.

It hadn’t even been a week, but John was fairly sure he’d never get used to kissing Sherlock Holmes, a sparkler lighting in his chest every time so far, however chaste the press of lips or brush of fingertips. But John wasn’t feeling particularly chaste at the moment, flicking his tongue at the crease of Sherlock’s mouth, which opened at the touch, a wash of mint rolling into his mouth before he was abandoned to the cold air, eyelids fluttering open to find Sherlock’s eyes crinkled up with a fond smile.

“You’re incorrigible,” he murmured, escaping in John’s moment of distraction, weaving around him and extricating two jumpers from the pile. “Rudolph or Christmas tree?” he asked, turning back to lift both options, and John smiled, shaking his head and pointing to the reindeer.

“Rudolph. Everyone loves the ones with lights,” he said, and Sherlock nodded, tugging it over his head as John plucked lint from the white sleeve of his jumper, the chest entirely taken over with a massive sequined poinsettia.

“Alright,” he said, tugging at the hem of the jumper and running a hand through the charged flyaways in his hair. “We should go.” He glanced at the clock on his bedside table. “Any more than thirty minutes late is considered rude.”

“Where have you been hiding the  _ Good Housekeeping _ collection?” John asked, but grabbed his jacket and scarf—a gray wool blend Sherlock had offered as a replacement—and followed him down the stairs, waving goodbye to his landlady, Mrs. Hudson, on the way out.

They were twenty minutes late, which Sherlock declared to be perfect, Irene’s flat already bustling with people and garish jumpers, flashing necklaces and Santa hats turning every room into a disco, though the music was more festive in nature, if a little 90s. Sherlock had grown quiet on the walk from the station, arms stiff and hands shoved in his pockets, his palms now sliding down the sides of his jeans as their coats were added to the pile on the sofa.

John reached out to hook the fingers of his left hand, the skin a little clammy with nerves, but he only tightened his grip, giving Sherlock’s palm a reassuring squeeze as they started through the living room.

“John!”

He turned to find Irene waving at him from the entrance to the kitchen, a bowl of some sort of carb-centered party mix in her hand that she dropped on the folding table against the wall on her way to them.

Sherlock took a deep breath at his side.

“I’ve sent you a couple angry texts; ignore them,” she muttered as she spread her arms, proudly displaying the elf on the front of her jumper, hat bedecked with a bell and 3D feet flopping out.

John chuckled, slipping his hand from Sherlock’s to accept her hug, leaving one arm slung around her shoulders as he turned her toward the man. “Irene, this is Sherlock,” he said, enunciating the name for the first time she’d heard it, and Irene beamed, darting out from under his arm to take Sherlock’s offered hand with a vigorous shake.

“It is so nice to meet you. John’s told me absolutely nothing about you.”

Sherlock laughed, his posture seeming to unwind a bit. “Probably for the best. I haven’t heard much about you either.”

“Then allow me to lie profusely while I give you the tour,” she said, looping an arm around his elbow and dragging him away, Sherlock casting a bewildered look over his shoulder, lips thinning to an unamused line as John shrugged.

As they disappeared into the kitchen, John investigated the refreshment table, surprised he still had eyebrows even walking past the punch bowl and opting for a jack and coke instead, grabbing a small paper plate for a tortilla and dip starter.

“Hey!” a familiar voice said at his back, a heavy hand coming down on his shoulder a moment later. “You made it! Long time no see.”

John chuckled, looking up into Greg’s smiling face, his response dying on his tongue as he glanced down the rest of the man’s body. “What the hell…” he murmured, and Greg stepped back, lifting his shoulders in a shrug.

“My jumper was definitely ugly, but Irene said it wasn’t Christmassy enough.”

John spluttered over a laugh, shaking his head at the hideous candy-cane striped jumper, a window cut across the chest to reveal two shiny Santa hat pasties over his nipples. “Well, it’s…certainly festive now.”

“And breezy,” Greg said, puffing out his chest with a grin, and John laughed, his drink sloshing precariously up the sides of his glass. “So,” he continued, snagging a tortilla chip and swipe of salsa from John’s plate, “Molly tells me you’re seeing someone?” He looked over John’s shoulder, as if he’d find him hiding behind his back.

“I- Well, we haven’t- Yeah,” he muttered, and Greg chuckled, nudging him on the arm with an elbow.

“Not the one she set you up with though, eh?” He twitched a shoulder to his ear when John nodded. “Just as well. I didn’t think it was a match. He’s a great guy, don’t get me wrong,” he muttered, shaking his head, “but he’s a bit-”

“Greg?”

John turned around at the voice, Sherlock reappearing with Irene behind him, his eyes wide and lips open as he swept over Greg’s holiday attire.

“What the  _ hell _ are you wearing?”

“An Irene Adler original,” Irene chimed in, flipping her hair off her shoulder. “Anyone who didn’t come in an ugly sweater had to wear one I picked out.”

“I  _ did _ wear an ugly sweater.”

“The holiday theme was  _ implied _ ,” Irene snipped, and then stepped away, frowning between Greg and Sherlock. “But what’s going on here, how do you two know one another?”

“I- er,” Greg muttered, looking uncomfortable all of a sudden, his anxious expression at odds with his glittering nipples. “We-”

“Sherlock?”

“Molly?”

“Molly?” John muttered, head pivoting around the group, Molly appearing at Greg’s shoulder with matching pallor, the couple exchanging an earnest glance while Sherlock and Irene looked just as perplexed as he was. “You know Molly?”

“Yeah, we had a few classes together,” Sherlock quickly explained, and Molly stepped forward, pointing between them.

“Wait, you two know one another?” Her brows pinched together, Greg’s expression equally confused behind her. “How do you two know one another?”

“We’re, er-” Sherlock said, and then broke off, the particulars of their relationship status not yet explicitly discussed.

“He’s…the guy I told you about,” John elaborated, and Molly’s eyes blew wide, his strict instructions flying out the window, it would seem, as she gasped.

“You said your date didn’t show up!” she exclaimed, his stomach sinking as she pointed at him, and then rounded on Sherlock, who shuffled a half step back. “And you said he was gone when you got there!”

“He didn’t,” John said at the same time Sherlock said, “He was,” the two of them exchanging a frown as Molly continued to spin wildly between them.

“But…then how…”

“Wait,” John interjected, lowering his snack plate to the table and lifting a palm, his gaze slowly shifting around the confused faces, “are you saying…the blind date you set me up on”—Sherlock turned to him, alarmed a moment before comprehension dawned in his eyes—“was with Sherlock?” He pointed, as if there could be any confusion with a name like that, John’s head spinning on his shoulders when Molly nodded.

Sherlock opened his mouth over a soft inhale, index finger directed at John’s chest. “So…the other night…you were-”

John nodded. “And you were-”

Sherlock nodded, staring at him a long moment, the gears in John’s head grinding and whirring until something slotted into place.

“You stood me up,” he said, and Sherlock’s mouth dropped open.

“What? No, I-”

“Yes, you did!” John urged, jabbing a finger at him. “You stood me up!”

“You were leaving!”

“So?”

“So, even if I  _ had _ gone in, you wouldn’t have been there. And I  _ didn’t _ go in because I was  _ with _ you.”

“While standing me up.”

“I-I wasn’t- How can I stand you up for you?”

“You didn’t know I was me.”

“But, if I  _ hadn’t _ stood you up, there never would’ve been any date at all. So, really,” he snapped, folding his arms over his chest, “you should be glad I stood blind-date you up for…regular you.”

John opened his mouth, and then closed it, smiling with frustrated fondness at the ridiculous man in front of him. “I suppose I should,” he mused with a gentle shake of his head. “But it still hurt blind-date me’s feelings.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “I’ll buy him a coffee.”

“He prefers tea.”

“See, this is why I stood him up.”

John laughed, and Sherlock smiled, the remaining trio staring between them, Greg looking like his head was about to implode.

“I-I don’t- So, he- And then you- But you didn’t. And then you did?”

“Let’s just…start drinking,” Molly soothed, patting him on the arm, Greg nodding vaguely as Molly guided them across the room, making a beeline for the turpentine punch.

“Well,” Irene sighed, eyeing the beverage selection herself, “that was even more dramatic than the Christmas when my mum announced she was leaving my dad for my uncle.” She grinned between them, clapping them on the arms and turning away, following in Greg and Molly’s footsteps, Sherlock frowning after her, tilting his head.

“Is that…true?”

“Probably,” John shrugged, and Sherlock chuckled, the sound fading as he looked back to him, running a hand up the back of his skull.

“I- My phone really did die. The other night,” he muttered, lifting his gaze through his lashes. “The train was delayed, and I- I didn’t mean to stand you up.”

“Sherlock,” John said, shaking his head, “I was just joking. I don’t care that you stood me up.” He shrugged, slotting his fingers into Sherlock’s and pressing their palms tight together. “And, besides, it all worked out in the end.”

Sherlock smiled, a swallow bobbing down his throat, the lights tacked up on Irene’s walls and strung around the necks of her guests reflecting a kaleidoscope of color in his eyes when he lifted his chin. “I guess some things are meant to be.”

John stared. Blinked. And then snorted, Sherlock jolting his hand away with a yelp of affront. “That was  _ so _ corny.”

“That’s exactly what you said!”

“Yeah, but it was way less corny when I said it.”

“That doesn’t make any-”

“Children!” Irene interrupted, thrusting two full glasses of punch at their chests. “Do I have to get my get-along sweater?”

Sherlock frowned. “What’s-”

John shushed him, shaking his head and downing the rest of his jack and coke to take the punch. “Don’t ask; just drink.”

“A worthy Christmas motto,” Irene said, tipping Sherlock’s plastic cup before handing it to him, taking her own from Greg, who now joined the circle with Molly, bright smiles on all of their faces. “Cheers, queers!” she saluted, hoisting her glass in the air, and they joined her, a ring of bubbling red punch hanging like a halo over their heads as John glanced at Sherlock, the brightest grin of all of them stretched across his face.

“Cheers, queers!”

____________________

John groaned, rolling away from the window to hide from the light trying to jackhammer its way past his eyelids.

It had been well into Christmas Day by the time they staggered back to Sherlock’s flat, a vague memory of singing carols to Mrs. Hudson rising to the foggy forefront of his memory as his brain groaned into motion.

“Good morning,” sang a far-too-chipper voice, and John moaned into the pillow, tilting his head to squint one eye free from the fabric.

Sherlock sat on his side of the bed, legs crossed beneath him, still in the linen trousers and oversized t-shirt he’d used for pajamas, but with a steaming cup of coffee cradled in front of his ankles.

John quirked a brow, and Sherlock chuckled, leaning back to hook the handle of another cup on his nightstand, and John pushed up onto his side, taking the mug and placing it on the flat stretch of mattress in front of him. He breathed in the steam, a contented hum vibrating across his lips before he slurped up the first scalding sip, smacking the liquid against the roof of his mouth. “Did you put cinnamon in this?” he asked, and Sherlock shrugged, the wide neck of his shirt shifting against his collarbone.

“It’s Christmas,” he muttered, and John chuckled, shaking his head down at the warm lifeblood.

“Christmas,” John echoed in a grumble against the lip of his mug. “I’m barely  _ alive _ and you’ve had time to make coffee.”

“It didn’t take that long,” Sherlock said, a swallow rolling down his throat. “I used the press.”

John blinked, cup hovering under his chin. “You got out a French press?”

Sherlock hummed an affirmative, lifting a brow at John’s bewildered look.

John lowered the cup back to the mattress. “Aren’t you hungover?” he asked, and Sherlock laughed, scratching at the back of his head.

“A little, I guess,” he murmured, “but I slept in. Only got up forty-five minutes ago or so.”

John looked past him to the bedside table, squinting at the clock.

9:30am.

“Oh, my god,” John groaned, steadying his coffee as he rolled onto his back, slinging his free arm over his eyes. “My boyfriend is a morning person.” He sighed, and then froze, his stomach shrivelling in on itself as his eyes blew wide, peering over the curve of his arm at the ceiling above. “I-I mean-” he muttered, pulling his arm away and rolling his face toward him, but Sherlock didn’t appear remotely fazed, a sly smirk hooking at the corner of his mouth as he slurped at his coffee, peering at John from the tops of his lowered eyes. John’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why don’t you look surprised?”

Sherlock finished his drink, swallowing slowly. “Do you want me to be surprised?”

“I want to know why you’re not surprised,” he replied, and Sherlock chuckled, settling his cup back in front of his ankles.

“Maybe because you said it last night,” he murmured, John’s veins turning to ice as his cheeks caught fire. “Repeatedly.”

“Oh my god,” John groaned, propping himself up and leaning forward to try and drown himself in his coffee.

“You also got very emphatic about an electric kettle, for some reason.”

“I am  _ so _ sorry,” John urged, lifting his chin and reaching toward him, his hand settling on the duvet a few inches from his legs. “I-I didn’t mean-”

“You didn’t mean it?” Sherlock’s voice was soft, fragile, a glass feather in the palm of John’s hand, and he nearly spilled his coffee in his rush to sit up, placing a firm hand on Sherlock’s knee.

“No, I- I mean,  _ yes _ , I meant it, but I...didn’t mean to  _ say  _ it. Like that. When I was off my ass.”

Sherlock chuckled, his neck turning pink. “Well, good,” he mumbled, scrubbing at the back of his neck and reaching around behind him over the edge of the mattress, “because, otherwise, this would’ve been  _ very  _ awkward.” He pulled a box up from the floor, floating it in the air a moment before dropping it on the mattress between them, John tilting his head as he scanned the picture on the outside of the cardboard.

An electric kettle. An electric kettle was putting a knot in his throat.

How middle-aged mom of him.

“How-How did you- It’s Christmas Day.”

“Mrs. Hudson knew a guy,” he said, swatting a hand in the air. “I didn’t want any specifics.”

“Fair enough,” John muttered, twisting the box to read the special features.

“It might take me a little longer to get the pony you mentioned though.”

“Fuck off,” he grumbled, and Sherlock chuckled, taking another sip of his coffee. He shifted the kettle aside, stretching forward to tap a kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth. “Thank you,” he said, and Sherlock hummed, twitching a shoulder. He then pulled back, fingertips scratching against the fabric of Sherlock’s pajama trousers as he frowned at the side of the box. “But I...I didn’t get you anything.”

“Sure you did,” Sherlock replied, John considering he was being sappy for a whole .03 seconds until he saw that same secret smirk tug at his mouth, his legs untangling as he rolled off the bed and padded to the closet. “You paid Irene a whole fifteen quid for this.” He turned, Greg’s candy-cane jumper in his hand, and John nearly spit his coffee all over the bed, slapping a hand to his mouth as the memory slammed into him. “Personally, I think she was robbed, but- Hey, hot coffee,  _ hot coffee _ !” he squealed as John threw a pillow at him, darting from the room while John untangled himself from the sheets, chasing him into the living room as fast as he could without spilling his Christmas coffee.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Twitter and Instagram @consultingdr221 or on Tumblr at prettysherlocksoldier


End file.
